If you thought strange body piercings was taboo, try inserting a shard of metal or tattooing on the white of your eyeball! How About Contacts With Hanging/Dangling Jewelry!

The latest fashion trend to hit the Netherlands is eyeball jewelery. Dutch eye surgeons have implanted tiny pieces of jewelery called "JewelEye" in the mucous membrane of the eyes of six women and one man in cosmetic surgery pioneered by an ophthalmic surgery research and development institute in Rotterdam.

The procedure involves inserting a 3.5 mm (0.13 inch) wide piece of specially developed jewelery usually a heart or star-- into the eye's mucous membrane under local anesthetic at a cost of 500 to 1,000 euros (900.00 u.s.).

In this article I'll be covering some shocking concepts in "Eye Bling" such as JewelEye (implanted metal in your eyeball!), Eye Tattoos (changing the whites of your eyes to other colors), contacts with hanging jewelry (ouch), and more. Complete with shocking videos!

The JewelEye implant is a lot like a tattoo in that it, like ink in a tattoo, resides below the surface but shows through it.

"In my view it is a little more subtle than (body) piercing. It is a bit of a fun thing and a very personal thing for people," said Gerrit Melles, director of the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery.

Unlike most piercings it's not "loose" or "dangling" around inside the slit. When its inserted and the eye heals the cut it heals around the metal like a mold forms around an object, holding it naturally in place.

It in essence becomes a new artificial part of the eye, moving in sync with it.

The metal piece itself is designed with frictionless and smooth surface areas, however, due to its shape (stars for example) it has soft points so I wouldn't think your told you can rub the eyes, even after it's healed over. The stars have smooth rounded edges for the points as a safety measure I'm sure.

"What if"

I wonder if the weight of this chunk of metal makes that eyeball stronger, able to shift faster, and strengthening the eyes focus? My first thought is that this would stretch the membrane slightly, even after healing, or would pull it down slightly causing the lens of the eyeball to distort which would likely cause bad vision right away or over time. The procedure is so new only time will tell.

Eye-Robics?

What if you only put one of these things in a single eye, will you start moving your right eye faster than the left? What if you had one in each eye (one first then years later the other) and your eyes became incredibly strong (with practice) and could look around like a chameleon does. Do you think this would improve our ability to use two sides of the brain at once? Would it make your vision worse? This kind of thing opens the door for a lot of what if's!

It definitely has "Shock" value

When I first learned of this insane procedure it shocked me that people actually did this. So much so that I HAD to learn more. The imagery going through my head was staggering to me. Thoughts of pain, needles, questions flooded my senses, does it hurt after? does it feel painful to move your eye?

The more I read, the more I understood it the less shocked I felt (but still thought it was/is an irrational and even taboo thing to do). It's the ideas that are so far out of our imagination's reach without more information that make us think that's totally disgusting, crazy, insane, and what the hell were they thinking.

If someone were looking for something "unique" and full of "shock" value when someone saw it (how could they miss it?) then this is it. I wouldn't recommend it, however, as it's not what I'd consider safe, especially to your eyesight. Don't we spend a lot of time making sure things DON'T get into our eyes or scratch them?

Some people would just look at the persons eye "Bling" and become uncomfortable for the same reason we get uncomfortable looking at what we know is a glass eye- worse if that glass eye was something far outside the range of a normal eyeball, like an 8 ball, picture of a scull and cross bones and the like. As a waiter/server I had a real hard time looking at people with these unique eyeballs I couldn't help but stare.

Watch the Revealing video below to see the procedure in all its glory. I warn you however it is shocking to watch, but one hell of an education in eye jewelry.

The JewelEye Surgery LIVE!!!!! (Brace yourself)

Resource/Research

In my search I found several resources. One of the sites here has a downloadable word file you can read that explains everything from how its done to how to take care of it. It's also the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery- where people go to get it done.

Concerns

When you think of the concept of piercing and adding a chunk of metal to your eyeball thoughts of madness and irritation (to the eyes) come to mind, at least they did for me. Then of course you ask yourself why would anyone take a chance at damaging their eyes for glamor?

Other opinions and fears said on pages I visited were that this may damage the whites of the eyes and cause one to go blind after several years.

My fear was that this would affect the surface area of the lens making seeing things crystal clearly more difficult. What about the piece of metal causing stress (which may cause headaches) in the eyeball and eventually tearing a space around it giving it the ability to move around or "jiggle" around in the eye- would you feel that? Would it cause scaring so it wouldn't heal?

The experts in the industry on eye jewelry claim they have thought this thing through and assure us that there is no danger from it. They claim It doesn't affect the surface area of the lens at all because it's done in the far corner of the eyeball itself.

One thing you have to think about is that just playing around with some friends (for the younger generation) could render this a problem area. Going blind I don't think is a danger unless of course you get punched in the eye (or catch an elbow to the eye while wrestling?) hard enough for this to pop out and damage the lens or eyeball itself.

The procedure is called, formally, "JewelEye". You'd say that term as you would "ear piercing" or "belly button piercing" and so on. You have to admit if you had the moxie to do something like this (I sure have reservations) you would definitely stand out in a crowd, and inspire awe in those who saw it. I thought it was cool to see those Halloween contact lenses but this takes the cake!

Why do we do things like this that appear so dangerous?

Some people love to test the limits of life. They face danger head on but mind you systematically. The do after all want to survive to tell the story!

I recently saw a man jumping from an airplane with a flying raccoon type suit on, traveling horizontally at 120 miles per hour, literally "flying" like superman, flips and all, but what truly amazed me was he surfed so close to mountains and the ground (top of mountain plateaus) he was touching the rocks with his fingertips (or at least was within an inch of it) then flew off away and to another area where was practically a foot from the ground. One twig or rock could have ended his ride, but he seemed to know what he was doing. The ride ended with him navigating away from all mountains then hitting a parachute to land safely.

Don't you wish you could have seen that? you can below this next paragraph is the real video of them doing it. the guy taping is right behind the other guy with a helmet cam flying too! Then a camera on the ground/mountain shot them both (thank god for video editing to surpass the limitations of one angle viewing :) The sublime footage that will blow your mind!

To me this took incredible courage but his response was that (well his friend narrated actually) they got bored of just flying so they improvised to make it fun. It's mind boggling that you can get bored of flying 120 miles an hour like superman but when you do anything enough times I guess its no longer scary.

Part of the reason some people are "Piercing" their eyes is boredom with the status quot. People are looking for shock value or a way to draw more attention to themselves. Others just like to express their creative and fearless side.

I woudlnt believe it if I didnt see it with my own two eyes!

JewelEye vs Lasik Procedures

My apprehension for the JewelEye procedure comes from my reading about the Lasik procedure... I can only imagine that this is nothing compared to the piercing of ones eyeball, but incredibly after reading the articles and results of people actually doing it, its not much more painful. In fact they say its not painful at all, even afterward the worse they say is happening is redness of the eyes and the embedded fear and apprehension caused by irrational fears.

From what I'd read I have to conclude fear is the only real pain in doing it. You can read about the Lasik procedure here which is the full skinny about the procedure and out patient part of it. It takes literally about 2 minutes but the idea of them putting a suction cup on my eye is terrifying, (see image to the left). I'm apprehensive about just putting in contacts!

Their were two cases of JewelEye piercing (although I don't believe the term JewelEye was coined at the time but I could be wrong) that got major publicity because there was a really bad result, infection and the like. It is claimed that they didn't take care of their eyes and this was before the technique had been improved and honed into what it is today. How'd you like to be a JewelEye beta tester? Not me!

Tattoos and Piercings Have Become Procedures Done At Home, What Would Be Scary Is If People Attempted JewlEye at home!

Luckily eyeball piercing is not likely to gain a popular home brewed extension. No one is going to try this at home, any more than you'd subscribe to over the phone surgery you do yourself as the doc walks you through the procedure. If someone does try it, they need to get their head examined.

The professionals and doctors performing the procedure seem to be fairly confident this is a very safe and evolved procedure if done correctly AND the surgeon cleans the eyes properly it is no more dangerous than any other piercing.

Eye Tattoos too? Where will it stop?

This started out 2000 years ago not for vanity but to help with diseases that cause someone to go blind.

The tattooing was designed to hide the features of the eyes that make it appear bad like red lines and such.

Its to give the blind eye a natural appeal, but theirs a market developing (may be out don't know yet) of tattooing the white part of the eyes..

Ouch huh?

It's likely to catch on as another form of "Eye Bling" as well! Below I found a video on Youtube of a news report that was televised about people in Jail creating tattoos on on the whites of their eyes (saturating them with colors to completely change the landscape of the eyes) for self expression.

Some of the tattoos are pretty amazing to look at (scary though to think about). Take a look, you'll be amazed I'm sure!

Contact Lenses with dangling art like earrings?

I even in my research found someone who created a dangling jewelery piece from a string attached to a contact lens!!! It's fascinating what people are trying. Some good, some bad, but definitely entertaining.

Below is a great video showing someone wearing one live and it goes into more towards the middle of the video...

Conclusion

I hope you found this fascinating. I learned about these shocking Eye Bling concepts 4 years ago (this article used to be on Hubpages and has been moved here to Wizzley and updated) and many were shocked to find out about them. I'm still shocked to know about them- it's amazing the lengths people will go to be different or to express themselves in a unique way!

Below are the comments over 4 years from hubpages, I wanted you to benefit from what people said as this article caused quite a stir when it was originally released! I invite you to leave a comment below the grey box and if you have some finds not mentioned here we'd love to hear about them (perhaps I'll update the article with my research on them!).

Leave A Comment or Share Some Of Your Shocking Finds In Eye Bling!

I am always amazed when people have things done because they think will make them more attractive - things that might be dreaded if it were a medical procedure that was needed for health reasons. It is best to know about the - art from contact lens as it might be a bit of a shock to see someone with it in real life. And maybe I am starting to sound like my grandmother.

Now I think I have seen it all! To think (seeing comments from 4 years ago) that this has been around for that long and I have never seen it or heard of it! I am not sure if I am amazed or disturbed by this!